Recalling and recording my dreams has been a significant and
constant part of my life since 2005. I had written down dreams for many years
before then, but 2005 is when I found a site which allowed me to keep an
organized digital journal of them...
www.dreamjournal.net . With conscious practice and dedication, I have
gotten to the point where I can generally remember parts of at least one dream
every night. Sometimes, I remember up to five or six separate dreams in one
nights sleep. I keep an Olympus voice recorder hanging on the wall next to my
bed so that I can easily record anything I remember without having to move or
even open my eyes. This practice increases recall and makes it easier to fall
back asleep once the dream is recorded.

We spend about one third of our lives asleep. This is an
essential part of life, as it gives the physical body time to rest and
recuperate, and the mind time to establish electrical connections in the brain
and store memories. It is a proven fact that lack of sleep decreases memory
retention. This is because REM sleep, or the time during which we dream, is when
memories and learned information is hard-wired into the brain. And when we sleep
we sleep in stages and cycles: a deep Delta sleep stage where the brain is
inactive, followed by an REM stage. After 90 minutes of this, we wake up
(usually not to the point of complete conscious awareness), and fall back
asleep, starting the cycle of stages over again. The longer that we are asleep,
or the more cycles that we go through, the shorter the Delta stage is and the
longer the REM stage is. This is why the longer we sleep, the better we remember
things.

So why are dreams important? There are several reasons. I will
begin with the simplest argument. As stated above, sleep takes up about a third
of our lives, and dreams are the only memory of these 25 years that we have.
Since the span of our life is limited, it stands to reason that we should
experience as much as possible while alive, to get as much out of life as we
can. The only way to get anything other than rest and memories out of sleep is
to remember your dreams.

Dreams also give an insight to what we really think, and what we
expect. Because the progression of dreams are based upon our expectations. Often
times it is difficult to truly know how you feel about something while awake, as
our rational mind and inhibition interferes with our decision making. This isn't
the case while dreaming. Whenever the dreaming mind finds itself in a situation,
whatever it expects to happen is what will happen. In other words, we are never
wrong while dreaming. For example, lets imagine one dream scenario played out by
two different people. The scenario is this: you find yourself along a dark
street, and ahead of you is the figure of a person whose face you cannot
distinguish. A worrisome and paranoid person will expect that the figure is
someone who wants to hurt them, and thus the figure becomes a killer who begins
to chase them. On the other hand, a social and carefree person might expect that
the figure is someone they know, and thus the figure becomes a friend who greets
them. So our dreams are guided by our expectations, and our expectations are
formed by experiences in our waking life. Depending on what you have experienced
in life, you will come to expect certain outcomes from specific scenarios. Back
to the worrisome and paranoid person. Lets say they play out the same scenario
described above, but while they are actually awake. They might jump to the same
initial conclusion - that the figure ahead is someone who wants to hurt them.
But because they are awake, their fears will not immediately materialize and
they can test and debunk this conclusion to find that the figure is in fact any
other person, with little or no interest in them.

Taking the above into consideration, a lot can be learned from
our dreams. They give us a chance to see how we would react to various
hypothetical situations. They also make blatantly obvious our fears, hopes, and
desires. With this knowledge, one can use their dreams to better their waking
life. From personal experience, I can say that on several occasions a dream has
inspired me to make a fundamental change in my lifestyle, yielding a positive
result. Whether it be forgiving someone I had differences with, or stopping a
bad habit that might eventually harm me, I have gained a significant amount by
remembering and analyzing my dreams.

This, however, is only half of the story of dreams. While our
dreams progress via our expectations, the scenarios and content of our dreams
are often directly related to input recently received in our waking life.
Whether it be something we heard, saw on television, thought about, discussed,
or read, it can and does materialize in our dream in the strangest of fashions.
In 90% of the dreams that I recall, I can directly relate some aspect of it to
something experienced in my recent waking life. Perhaps this is because my mind
is converting these experiences into memories, and the by-product is a dream
cameo appearance. This is one of my favorite aspects of dreams, because I never
know what crazy or random conglomeration of ideas will become reality while
asleep. It is like watching a movie every night, with an unpredictable plot and
storyline based on our experiences, memories, and expectations. What better
entertainment could you ask for?

Dreams are often times symbolic, too. I will give an example of
a dream told to me by a friend. She dreamed that she was being held down and
operated on by a group of elves. They had to cut her open in order to remove
something from her. She didn't want this operation to take place, but her family
was there telling her that she needed it and preventing her from escaping. The
elves part of the dream is quite random. Perhaps it was linked to a recent input
in her life. The dream itself is quite symbolic, however. She had recently
started college and was still living at home with her parents. She wasn't happy
living there and needed to get out. This was symbolized by her family holding
her back and forcing her to remain with the elves. A couple months after the
dream, she moved out on her own and hasn't recalled any similar dreams since.

Recalling my dreams has taught me a lot about myself, and has
given me a sense of pride and accomplishment. Perhaps the best part of it is
that I know that I have much of my life ahead of me, and plenty of time to dream
more wild and crazy dreams. I sincerely believe that this is an interest that
will stay with me for the rest of my life.